


Cold Comfort

by Hagar



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Case Fic, Episode: s02e04 Sparks and Recreation, Episode: s03e03 The Farmer, Episode: s03e07-08 Magic Hour Parts 1-2, Gen, Male Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Novella, Original Character(s), POV Male Character, Season/Series 3, Single POV, The Grey Gull, Veterans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 08:17:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3112625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With two weeks left until Audrey is gone and not a day since Nathan was dead, the last thing Duke needs is another Trouble - let alone a Trouble that takes out two of his employees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> **Content advisory:** S3 themes and issues; characters with PTSD, depression and panic attacks.
> 
>  **Love & gratitude:** IShouldBeWriting, misslucy21 and noxelementalist for cultural advisory; amidstthetrees for thorough editing; lovechilde for cultural advisory, beta’ing and holding my hand through the last scenes; and bessemerprocess for enthusiasm, beta’ing and endless story-dev talks.

  ** _November 2010_**

_Monday_

 

Calling Taco Tuesday a day early was a great idea, Duke thought as he surveyed the Gull. The place was packed to a rare extent for a weekday. The Gull’s Taco Tuesdays were famous throughout town, and word had spread quickly. There was no promotion like word-of-mouth promotion, and the turnout was making Duke’s chest swell. He hadn’t meant to acquire a bar, but it was nice to own a place that made people happy.

It was also nice that Nathan was no longer dead; that was making _Duke_ happy. It was also the real reason for the celebratory tacos, as Duke could hardly scribble Welcome Back From the Dead Monday on the board. This _was_ Haven and someone _was_ bound to take that seriously. Duke was in no hurry to draw trouble down upon himself, even if it wasn’t Trouble with a capital T.

Speaking of things that made people happy - Duke looked down at his glass. Empty. He should head indoors and do something about that. He could also pass through the kitchen while he was at it. He’d been completely gone from the Gull for three days, between Colorado and Nathan being _dead_. The people Duke kept around the Gull didn’t hold his frequent absences against him. Whether that was because of his initiative-positive style of management or because they got enough of what was going on, but it wouldn’t be a half-bad idea to prove to the kitchen crew that he was, in fact, still alive.

Indoors was even more packed than the deck; not much of a surprise, on an early November night. Duke sidled his way through the crowd towards the bar, where he slid his empty glass across towards Mikey - who caught it without even looking - and went into the kitchen.

The Gull’s kitchen was predictably loud, hot and hectic. Or at least hectic-looking: nobody showed more distress than was normal and nothing seemed out of place except - Duke caught Alex the shift-manager as he passed by. “Hey, isn’t Leslie on Tuesday?”

Alex shook his head. “She came down with a fever day before yesterday.”

“Is she okay?”

“That I know. Rescheduling’s been a pain, though.”

It would be - the Gull had no spares on its roster. “Sorry you had to work through the weekend. I know you usually -”

Alex snorted. “Are you kidding? I only heard about it this morning.”

Which meant that somebody else had run the show who wasn’t Duke, Alex or Tracy. That ‘someone’ had to be - “The usual suspect?”

“That’s the one,” Alex confirmed.

“Thanks, Alex.”

“How about next time you let me know you’re going to be a day later than you said you would.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Duke headed back into the public space of the Gull. No sooner did he step out than a glass was placed on the bar next to his hand with a resolute thud. Duke turned his head, met Mikey’s innocent expression with raised eyebrows and took a sip of whatever Mikey had mixed up this time. The dark caramel-coloured mix tasted of spice and smoke, with an aftertaste of sweetness; in translation from Mikey to English, it said _I realize you want to get drunk, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have something that tastes like comfort._

“So how was your weekend?” Mikey asked, deadpan.

Duke sat down on a miraculously-available stool and gave his bartender a shit look, which Mikey met without his deadpan wavering even one bit. “Eventful. Yours?”

Mikey shrugged. “Someone mention Leslie to you?”

“Yeah, how is she?”

“Stomach flu. She’s been keeping down the clear soup, so that’s good.”

 _The usual suspect_ was Mikey. Any time something got done around the Gull that needed doing and nobody stepped up to take the credit, it was Mikey who’d done it. Some days it was a relief to have the guy around but others, he made Duke’s shoulders tense. Duke didn’t like people whose motives he didn’t understand, and he didn’t believe in altruists.

Today Duke was glad for having Mikey around to do things like check up on Leslie. He raised his glass in a silent _Thank you._

Mikey, predictably, ignored it and went right back to serving the patrons.

 

* * *

 

  _Tuesday_

 

“Well, somebody’s looking lovely today.”

Audrey paused and turned around with a smile. “Thanks, Duke.”

It was night, and they were both standing outside the Gull’s front door. Audrey had just come downstairs. She was dressed up, on the scale of Audrey: white chiffon blouse, slim dove-grey trousers with a matching jacket and shoes that would be a nightmare to run in, and… “That scarf looks familiar.”

Audrey rolled her eyes. “Yes, Duke, this is my birthday scarf.”

The azure blue didn’t match with the rest of her outfit. “You’re going out with Nathan.”

“Yes.”

“Somewhere that isn’t the best establishment in Haven.”

“The best establishment in Haven, which I so happen to be living above.”

“Point,” Duke conceded. Going out to the place under your apartment couldn’t really feel like going _out._ Audrey had a little under three weeks left. She’d been reluctant to feed Nathan’s false hopes, but it was possible that Nathan having been literally _dead_ for most of a day had changed her mind a little bit. “So, where are you two going?”

“Elk’s Head Inn.”

“That even still in Haven?”

“That’s…”

“...kind of the point?”

“You think that’s a bad idea?”

Duke shook his head. “Nah. Besides, they serve the best steak between here and Bangor.”

Audrey laughed. “Thanks, Duke.”

“You two have fun tonight.”

Audrey had already started in the direction of her car when she turned her head to glance back at him. “Call if you run into any Trouble!”

Duke raised his hand, but waited for Audrey to continue walking before he said, too quietly for her to hear: “Yeah, I don’t think so.” Audrey wouldn’t see another birthday; she wouldn’t see another month. If the small thrill of leaving town for a few hours was what would make this night for Nathan and her, Duke was all for that.

He turned around and headed back into the bar. The Gull wasn’t as full as it usually was on Tuesdays, but that made sense given the schedule change the day before. It was pretty normal for a weekday. Dinner service was in full swing, waitresses flitting across the floor with plates of lobster, steamed vegetables and mashed potatoes. The atmosphere wouldn’t get properly bar-like for two hours or so. That left Mikey at the bar with little to do. There were only three patrons sitting at the bar: two suits Duke didn’t recognize, and Estelle Harris. Duke made a mental note to check with Audrey the next day about what Rob Harris had gotten himself into _this_ time. As for getting Mikey to take a night off, Duke would have to talk to the guy himself if he wanted to make that happen. Mikey hadn’t had a night off since -

Yeah, they were still not having that conversation.

Assured that everything at the Gull’s front was fine, Duke went into the kitchen. Everything there seemed fine as well, until Duke spotted a twinned pair of pale blond heads, one at the cold line and one at the hot line.

“Joy and Jaime Blake, why are both of you in my kitchen at the same time?” Duke called out.

“Because Leslie’s sick!” Joy called back from the cold line.

Right; Leslie was sick for the fourth day in a row, now, and there was only so long Joy could be kept out of filling in for her, even if it meant the Blake twins had to work the same shift. That was something they tried to avoid as much as possible, allowing one of the two to stay with Joy’s son, Jesse.

“Marissa McCormick is staying with Jesse,” Jaime added from his spot at the hot line, answering Duke’s unvoiced question.

“Her parents okay with this?” Duke asked. Mari was fifteen, and it was a school night.

“Apparently she ends up doing more homework when she’s babysitting.”

“So long as I don’t see both of you here again tomorrow. All right, folks, carry on.”

Back at the front, it was just Estelle and one of the suits at the bar; the other one, Duke realized, had moved to a table and was in the process of ordering dinner. Another regular in the making, then.

Tracy was shift manager for dinner service that night. She turned up next to Duke about a minute after he parked himself at the end of the bar. Mikey was with them a moment later, serving Tracy with her preferred syrup-thick tea, lukewarm enough she could drink it quickly and - Duke’s eyebrow climbed up - something blood-red with an orange peel garnish for him.

“How are we doing so far?” he asked.

“Busier than it looks, but I’ve got enough hands out here, and the kitchen’s holding up,” Tracy said.

“My night hasn’t even started,” Mikey said.

“I can see that,” Duke said, eying the martini glass warily. Mikey clearly had too much free time on his hands if he was turning out things like that. The colour made Duke worry, too. It _could_ bethe daily special, or it could be a prank involving hot sauce.

Tracy said: “That won’t be long. Second round of dessert orders went in.”

Mikey nodded at her, and turned to Duke. “You gonna tell me how that is?”

“Does this have hot sauce in it?”

That got Duke another unimpressed look. “Yes.”

Duke took a careful sip. It tasted like candy for the first split-second, but then the dry bitterness made itself known, followed by the burning sting Duke had been bracing for - what had Mikey _done,_ extracted hot peppers in gin? “You may want to give it a little less oomph for everyone else. Don’t look so innocent, you’re not.” Tracy stifled a giggle. “And you’re a traitor.”

“And he’ll stop pulling your pigtails if you stop squealing so pretty,” she said. “And don’t you give me those eyes either, Mikey Toledano. Save them for people who fill up the tip jar.”

“Right, back to business,” Duke said. “I’ll name the special and put it on the board. Going good tonight, folks.”

Tracy rolled her eyes. “You say that every night, Duke.”

“That’s because it’s true,” Duke replied cheerfully, and resumed his rounds.

Two and a half hours later the Gull was in full bar mode. Duke was out on the deck, entertaining patrons - and making sure Garret Smedley and Chuck Owen stayed far away from each other - when Kelly popped up by his elbow.

“They need you in the kitchen.”

She sounded off and her eyes were too wide. Duke didn’t like this. “I got it,” he told her, and headed indoors.

Mikey wasn’t at the bar. Duke didn’t like that, either. The chances of Mikey not being promptly on top of anything unexpected were zip. Tracy or Alex might try to shoo him away, but they were the only ones. Alex wasn’t on that night and Tracy’s shift had ended half an hour after dinner service. If Kelly had come for Duke then this, whatever it was, required Duke’s authority as the owner. Either that, or it was _really_ bad.

Duke’s fears were confirmed when he walked into the kitchen. Nobody was working; some women were holding others, comforting them; and there on the floor was Jaime Blake, clearly unconscious, though someone had at least had the sense to leave him in a recovery position.

Where was Joy? Duke couldn’t spot the Blake’s telltale pale blond anywhere. And where was -

Mikey stepped out of the freezer room.

_Oh, shit._

Most people didn’t look past Mikey’s big, soulful eyes and his typical swimmer awkwardness, but that awkwardness was gone now. That made it impossible to miss that he was nearly as tall as Duke and built like a professional swimmer - or someone who wasn’t a swimmer at all. This was the side of Mikey that made him the Gull’s unofficial official bouncer, but there were no bar fights in a kitchen.

“What happened?” Duke demanded. “Where’s Joy?”

“He’s fine, I knocked him out. Needs to be moved. She cut her hand. There,” Mikey indicated the freezer.

Duke stepped over Jaime’s prone body; kid looked pretty okay for an unconscious guy. He peeked through the freezer’s window. “Fuck.” There was Joy Blake, frozen solid, clutching her left hand with her right.

“He needs to be out of here when he wakes up.”

“Keep sounding this reasonable and I might just punch you,” Duke shot back before he could think better of it. Jaime was Troubled and turning people to ice. His Trouble manifested after Joy had cut her hand -   _fuck,_ but that was a lot of blood. Somebody should clean it up, Duke could _smell_ it -

 _Focus,_ Duke chided himself. Mikey was right: they had to get the Troubled kid out of the room full of stressed-out people before he woke up.

“Audrey’s room is empty,” Duke told Mikey, who promptly bent down to lift Jaime in a fireman’s carry. “Back to work, everyone. And somebody please, please clean up that blood.” Work would do them good. So would routine, even if they were two pairs of hands short. “Come on. We’ve got this. Let’s just try and keep going for now. We’re handling this.” He waited until people started moving again, then went back to the Gull’s front - where, mercifully, no one has noticed anything yet. Kelly had taken over the bar in Mikey’s absence. Good girl: the Gull needed a bartender more than it needed an extra waitress, and Mikey won’t be coming back to the bar any time soon. Duke gave Kelly a thumbs-up and headed out the front door.

Mikey had left the kitchen through the back door. Duke couldn’t see him until he started up the stairs to Audrey’s floor - and even then only when Mikey moved out of the shadows.

“Can you be less creepy?” Duke asked exasperatedly.

“No.”

“See, that’s not the answer I wanted to hear.”

“So don’t ask kitbag questions.”

“We’re really going to have to talk about your attitude, buddy,” Duke replied as he unlocked Audrey’s door.

Jaime groaned.

Duke sighed. “After we take care of this Trouble.”

 

* * *

 

**_June_ **

 

The morning was already going badly. Duke’s plan for the day was to go hunting after the trail in the map that Evi stole. So naturally, it was raining. Of course it was. He’d be lucky if he didn’t drown in mud. He’d also be lucky if he managed to get this done with in one day. And if he didn’t, he’d be lucky if the Gull would still be running smoothly when he got back: they were short-staffed. Alex had tripped up while running and twisted his ankle pretty badly, Carl caught the same bug his kids had the week before, and Duke really shouldn’t have joked to Audrey about firing his bartender. He really, really shouldn’t have.

And so it was that on that fine, rainy morning, Duke was standing in the middle of the Gull’s front with a large pack slung over one shoulder.

“And make sure you -”

Tracy cut him off. “ _Duke._ ”

“Look, I know that -”

“It’s not that. There’s a guy.” She tilted her chin up, indicating the Gull’s front door - which was right behind Duke.

“Great.”

Duke turned around.

He’d never seen this guy before. He was sure, and not just because he had a good memory for faces: this guy looked Hispanic. A rare look for Haven, even if he was pale enough to have been living under New England sun for a while. Dark curls, striking eyes; about as tall as Duke; long-limbed, wide at the shoulders, solid. If this guy was here for trouble then Duke had better make it to one of his stashed guns fast, but nothing about this guy suggested violence other than that he was really, really still.

“Yeah?” Duke asked.

The guy stepped in. He had a swimmer’s awkward shuffle, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with his body outside the water. “I heard you were looking for a bartender?”

 _Oh._ The question had Duke sizing the guy up in a different way. The swimmer’s awkwardness didn’t really hide that quiet confidence; the two balanced each other precisely. Between that balance and that face this guy would be worth a fortune in tips. The ladies were guaranteed to swoon over the exotic beauty with the sad eyes, and the men would spill their hearts out to a guy who looked like he could understand.

The guy had the look down pat, but being personable wasn’t the only necessary job skill. “Yeah, that’s right,” Duke confirmed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Mikey. Toledano.”

“Right, Mikey.” Duke did some quick thinking. “I’d love to give you a pop quiz, but I really need to get moving. Fifteen minutes ago. This is Tracy Garrick. She’s going to be in charge here until I get back. If she still likes you when I get back, then you’re hired.”

Tracy’s look communicated exactly what she thought about that plan.

Mikey, for his part, just shrugged.

 

* * *

 

 Duke was right: he didn’t get it all done that same day. He only trudged back into the Gull two days later, tired and covered in dust after having dug under the Rasmusen House half the night - and all for an empty, useless box.

He was going to beat this thing. He wasn’t going to be killed by any tattooed man.

The Gull was already open; somebody was in early for opening shift. Whoever that was, they made what smelled like the best chai Duke had had in years. Duke didn’t remember any of his employees making chai that smelled like that; someone’s been holding out on him. Or not: behind the bar was the new guy.

“You’re still here,” Duke noted.

Mikey said nothing. By the time Duke pulled himself up a stool, Mikey had slid a glass of chai across the worn wood. Duke breathed in the scent, then took a careful sip. Spicy and complex, it tasted as good as the scent promised. He watched the movement of Mikey’s hands as he sliced a lime: the guy had probably worked in a restaurant kitchen before. He knew what he was doing.

Little by little, Duke’s tense shoulders began to relax. That was a skill too, he knew: the way Mikey managed to give him space while still communicating attention. Tracy had no patience for shit, and wouldn’t have let him stay if he wasn’t a decent pourer who at the very least knew his way around standard cocktails. Which meant: “You’re hired, by the way.”

Mikey glanced up at him. His hands never broke their pace, but for a moment, his eyes became a little lighter.

 

* * *

 

**_November_ **

 

Yes, they were going to use Audrey’s room. No, she wasn’t going to mind, not if it was for a Troubled person. And no, Duke wasn’t going to call her. She and Nathan deserved one goddamned night off. Besides, Mikey’s involvement meant backup was probably already on the way. Duke still called in his own reinforcements: if both  he and Mikey were going to be handling this Trouble then someone needed to watch the Gull. Duke’s options were Tracy and Alex. Tracy had only just gotten off a long shift but Alex hadn’t had his face-first run with the Troubles yet, whereas Tracy’s husband and son were both Troubled. Her husband was as good as lost, but Audrey had managed to save her son. Tracy swore at him, but she was on her way.

The stairs creaked as someone climbed them - someone heavy. A second later Dwight came around the corner. “What’s going on?”

“How much did Mikey tell you?”

“He didn’t. His text was empty.”

“I see.”

Dwight leaned on the bannister next to Duke. “We’re up here, so dare I hope it’s a Trouble?”

“Hope it’s a Trouble,” Duke repeated doubtfully. Dwight just looked at him. They had this conversation before and weren’t going to come to an agreement this time either, so Duke just sighed and said: “Yes, it’s a Trouble. Jaime Blake turned his sister into an ice statue.”

He didn’t expect Dwight to freeze. “Joy and Jaime? Damn.”

“You know them?”

“Yeah, my - yeah, I know them. Jaime’s in there?” he nodded towards Audrey’s door.

“Yeah,” Duke confirmed. Whatever it was that Dwight had swallowed back there, asking wasn’t going to get Duke any answers. He could only hope it wouldn’t explode in their faces. Sasquatch was usually more responsible than that. “Mikey’s trying to talk him down. Apparently freaking out makes him… frosty.”

Dwight nodded. “And Joy?”

“Still in the freezer unless Tracy moved her.”

“Garrick, James’s wife?”

“Not much about Haven that can still phase her,” Duke confirmed.

“The rest of your kitchen staff might appreciate it if we got Joy out of there. Plus -”

Whatever Dwight was going to say was cut off by Mikey coming out of Audrey’s room and joining them by the bannister. He left the door open behind him, giving Duke a view of Jaime sitting at Audrey’s table. He looked utterly wrecked, with his head between his hands - but nevertheless, frost-free.

“It’s worry that sets him off,” Mikey said. He pitched his voice quietly so it wouldn’t carry. The lack of inflection made Duke’s skin crawl. “Worried about his sister, sister freezes. Worried about what he’s done, he freezes.”

“He can’t be with Jesse, not on his own,” Dwight said.

“Yeah, that’s kind of a problem,” Duke said. “Babysitter’s fifteen.”

“Marissa? She’s a good kid, but - Mikey, if I gave you an address, would you be okay driving Joy there? We need to get her out of that freezer.”

“I can do that.”

“Not what I asked, Micki.” Dwights tone was implacable as always, but there was something else under that, something that came closer to the surface when he said _Micki._ For a split-second Duke processed that as _Mikey,_ but no: the second vowel was as short as the first. The second consonant was particularly harsh, too. It was a different form of the same name, but Duke didn’t think it was an English one.

It got Mikey’s attention, at any rate. Duke could see him pulling himself together from the distance he’d retreated to. It was a moment before he asked: “She dead?”

Dwight looked at Duke.

“Probably not,” Duke allowed. “Odds are, if we can get Jaime to calm down properly…”

Mikey was already nodding. He shifted his attention back to Dwight. “Address?”

Dwight fired off an address far out on Haven’s edges. Mikey nodded again, sharply, and walked away.

“Now what?” Duke asked.

“Now I take Jaime home and stay with Jesse and him.”

“Just how well do you know the Blakes?”

Dwight didn’t answer. Instead, he said: “And tomorrow we sit him down with Audrey, and hope.”

Duke would’ve asked again but Dwight had already stepped away and into the room.

“Hi, Jaime,” he said, so quietly that Duke wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t come over to the doorstep.

Jaime looked up. “Dwight?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing here? We haven’t seen you since Lizzie…”

Dwight cut him off neatly. “I’m here to take you home.”

“I can’t go home. Jesse -”

“I won’t let anything happen to Jesse. Or you. I’m going to stay with you, all right? Just stay calm for me.” Dwight gently guided Jaime out of the chair and up to a standing position as he spoke. He made it look natural, but Duke hadn’t failed to notice that he was careful to not touch Jaime’s bare skin.

“Joy -”

“We got her,” Duke said. Jaime glanced at him, startled as if he’d forgotten that Duke was there. “Mikey’s got her.”

Jaime nodded. Then he turned his attention back to Dwight. “Lizzie, was it…?”

Dwight looked as if he was going to deflect, but eventually he said: “Yes.”

“I’m sorry, we didn’t know -”

“Not now, Jaime. Come on. We need to get you home to Jesse. Marissa shouldn’t be up until three.”

And Duke should get back in his bar and release Tracy home before _she_ stayed up until three. Then, he’d have to scout out the address where they stashed Jaime, and get some sleep himself. The next morning, he’d need to wake Audrey up with her coffee spiked just like she liked it. Plus, he had to find the time to get Tracy’s and Alex’s heads together and rearrange everyone’s shifts. Again.

 _Fucking Haven,_ Duke thought sourly, and headed downstairs to take care of business.

 

* * *

 

**_July_ **

 

“Had a nice swim?” Duke asked exasperatedly as he pulled the unconscious Hank Nielsen out of the water and onto the deck.

All Mikey said was: “Check for hypothermia, he’s drunk.”

It’s been a little over a month since Duke had hired Mikey. That wasn’t anywhere near long enough to forget his initial impression of Mikey’s potential for skilled violence, but it was long enough to reframe it. Having the guy around significantly cut down on the number of hours Duke had to put into actually managing people; Mikey had a sixth sense for brewing conflicts and a knack for keeping them from spilling over. There’d been at least one time Duke reached for one of the guns he was definitely not supposed to keep anywhere that served alcohol only for Mikey to break up what could’ve been a mass brawl simply by stepping into the middle of it. Which was a good thing because, as Duke had found out that night, his bartender was a Buddhist with no respect for privacy or personal property who’d removed all guns from the premises.

So it didn’t really surprise Duke that the one fight Mikey couldn’t stop from breaking, he cut short by throwing the more violent party into the cove. Still, Duke couldn’t help but needle him a bit. “A cold swim, that’s the best you could come up with?”

Mikey just gave him a blank look as he pushed himself out of the water and unto the deck in a single motion. Actually, Duke wasn’t even sure that Mikey _had_ looked at him; his body language was as absent as the expression on his face.

“Was he unconscious before he hit the water?” Duke asked as he checked Nielsen’s mouth anyway; Mikey certainly looked like he knew what he was doing in the water and had no difficulty carrying Nielsen with him, but it wouldn’t do to let the patrons die.

“Yeah,” Mikey said.

Nielsen’s mouth was clear, and Duke was officially more concerned about Mikey than about Nielsen, Taylor and Woodhouse and their thirty-years-old grudge match. He rolled Nielsen over on his side and stood up. “Lose the wet clothes, would you? I got a perfectly good towel for you right here.” That at least got Mikey to look at him, but he was still looking as if Duke made no sense to him at all. “Get out of those wet clothes, Mikey,” Duke repeated and then, playing to Mikey’s mother-hen streak, added: “You’re beginning to freak me out.”

That did it. Mikey blinked, then pulled off the wet clothes with no attention whatsoever to the whistling ladies on the upper deck. Duke wasn’t paying that much attention to them, either: he just got a new concern.

Mikey had scars. They were old, and looked as if they’d received good care, but Duke knew bullet scars when he saw them and so would anyone on that porch who wouldn’t be distracted by everything else on display. There was no way Mikey was all right with exposing himself this way; he was just too out of it to care. Duke glanced up again: luckily, it seemed as if anyone watching for a fight had lost interest and walked away already. A little extra distraction and he could salvage this.

When Duke turned his head back, it was to find Mikey looking at him as if he was waiting for Duke to call the next move. Duke sighed. “For the record, you are never allowed to throw people into the water ever again.”

 

* * *

 

  ** _November_**

_Wednesday_

 

“What is it?” Duke asked. He and Audrey were driving up Timber Knoll Lane to the Blake home. She’d been looking at the window for the past few minutes, oddly absorbed. Best Duke could tell there was nothing outside but the wet, grey misery of Haven in November.

“What’s what?” Audrey asked in reply. She didn’t turn.

“Trouble with the rain? You’ve been staring out that window since we took that last turn.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I’ve never been to this part of town before.”

“Yeah? No Troubled people on _this_ side of Haven?”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s it.” If she heard his bitterness then she didn’t respond to it. Her tone was pensive. “Look at the signs on the houses, Duke.”

“Kinda driving here.” There were no other cars on the road, but that wasn’t it. He’d slept little and badly and this was Audrey, not Nathan; she wasn’t going to give him a hard time about it.

“It’s the maze symbol. A lot of these houses have it up.”

“The Guard.”

“Makes sense.”

“How so?”

This time she did turn to face him. There was a smile in her voice as she said: “Are you testing me, Duke?”

“What?”

“Come on, you thought about this same as I did. I grew up on streets that looked like this. Or the real Audrey Parker did.”

 _Streets that looked like this_ had older houses and overgrown yards; they were streets that housed people like Joy and Jaime Blake, just about scraping by, with no one to speak for them if anything happened. Audrey was right: he _had_ thought about why so few of the cases Audrey and Nathan responded to came from Haven’s outskirts; and he’d realized it made sense for the Guard to be stronger out here, where the distances between houses were bigger, where it was easier to disappear, where no one was surprised if you had problems. Those would be the kind of Troubles that pushed people to the Guard: the kind of Troubles that were going to really fuck you up when it came to life in a town that was still, somehow, mostly un-Troubled.

The entire drive, Duke has been wondering if any of the neighbours had knocked on the Blakes’ door already; if Sasquatch’s presence would turn the Guard away or call them like a beacon. He really hoped he wouldn’t be running into any tattooed men that day, even if he brought his own cop.

Jaime opened the door to them, looking tired and worn. His gaze skittered right over Duke and rested on Audrey, suspicious.

“Hi, Jaime.”

“Hi, Jaime. I’m Audrey.” She didn’t offer her hand; Duke had told her that this seemed like a touch-based Trouble. Jaime was likely to shy away from touch, and on the doorstep was not the right way to explain her immunity.

Jaime’s suspicion didn’t let up. “Aren’t you a cop?”

Yeah, that was about the welcome Duke expected. “She’s here to help, Jaime, not to arrest you.”

“Why would I arrest him?”

And this was why Duke didn’t always remember that the original Audrey Parker was a foster child who’d had to fend for herself her entire life: because _this_ Audrey Parker didn’t always remember it, either. “Well -”

Audrey’s eyes went wide as she caught up. “Oh my god.” She turned from Duke to Jaime. “What happened last night wasn’t your fault. You’re Troubled. You know what that means, right?”

Dwight had come up behind Jaime while they were talking. “It means you shouldn’t be having this conversation on the doorstep,” he said. “Come in, there’s breakfast.”

Jaime stepped aside.

“Did you make it yourself?” Audrey asked as they followed Jaime and Dwight into the kitchen.

“It’s probably something like - yup, that’s right: oatmeal,” Duke said.

“What’s wrong with oatmeal?” asked the small boy sitting at the kitchen table.

“Nothing’s wrong with oatmeal,” Jaime replied. “Are you finished?”

“Mm-mm.”

“All right. Go brush your teeth and then Dwight’s going to you to school, all right?”

Jesse’s face lit up. “I get to ride in the truck?”

“Yes, Jesse, you get to ride in the truck,” Dwight said. “Now come on, or we’re going to be late.”

“How are you doing?” Audrey asked once the kid was gone.

Jaime took a long breath. “All right, I guess. So long as I don’t -” His eyes screwed shut. Duke thought he was going to cry, but - instead of tears, icicles formed on his lashes.

“So long as he doesn’t think about Joy,” Dwight finished for him. “I figured it was better if we all got some sleep last night, instead of try and work past that.”

“No, you did good,” Audrey said. She reached for Jaime. “Hey, Jaime.”

“Don’t touch me!”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Jaime. Your Trouble isn’t going to hurt me. I’m immune to the Troubles.”

“No one’s immune to the Troubles.”

“She is,” Duke said. Jaime opened his eyes. Duke met them.

“Your Trouble’s not going to hurt Audrey, Jaime,” Dwight echoed. “She’s going to help.”

Jaime wiped the icicles away from his eyes. “Good. I don’t want anything from _them._ ”

Who were _them?_ Was _them_ the Guard? Did the Blakes have history with them that Duke didn’t know about, or - no: Dwight froze when Jaime spat that out. It was a subtle change but the kitchen was tiny and Duke had good eyes. And, from the way Sasquatch’s eyes rested on him, he knew that Duke saw.

“I’ll be heading back to the Gull,” Duke said. Dwight’s shoulders dropped.

Audrey nodded without looking back. “Nathan’ll pick me up later.”

“And I have a kid to drop off,” Dwight said, pushing past the rest of them. “I’ll call later, Jaime. Stay safe. Jesse!” And he disappeared upstairs.

“Any chance you can solve this Trouble by lunch shift?” Duke asked. “Because -”

“Duke!” Audrey cut him off, but it was a success: he’d made both her and Jaime smile.

 

* * *

 

 The Gull had still been empty when Duke and Audrey left. It wasn’t when Duke returned, but it wasn’t yet open for business either. The waitresses were still setting tables for brunch service; Mikey was behind the bar, polishing utensils; and Alex was at the end of the bar, pen in his hand and a phone up to to his ear, trying to make the shifts work.

He put both down as Duke sat on a barstool next to him.

“May I please fire some of those people?”

“No, Alex, you’re not allowed to fire anyone.”

“Well, nobody else is allowed to catch sick. Or catch one of those Troubles. Oh my god, Mikey, go away.”

Mikey had put away the utensils and the rag and planted his elbows down on the bar, leaning forward with eyes wide and attentive, the way he’d be addressing a patron who plunked down by the bar as if they had nothing else to look forward to in life.

“It’s just fucking inconvenient, all right?” Alex continued.

“Life’s inconvenient,” Mikey retorted, and flicked Alex’s glasses. It worked: Alex laughed and shook his head - before picking up the shift sheet and the phone and moving his operation to one of the tables.

“I’m not sure Alex is ready to hear that there’s an end to _inconvenience_ just yet, Mikey,” Duke said, trying to keep up the humor. _Suffering exists; suffering has an end._ Duke knew just about enough to recognize whenever Mikey started preaching Buddhism 101 again. Ordinarily Mikey would come up with something sarcastic in reply, but Duke wasn’t particularly surprised that this time all he got was Mikey going from warm to blank without even a blink of an eye in between. Mikey’s sleeves had pulled up when he’d leaned over the bar and exposed his wrists. Today’s bracelet wasn’t Mikey’s usual single band of black leather, but the wrap reserved for the mornings after bad bar fights. On the bright side, the coils of it were all still bunched around his wrist; he had a nervous habit of pulling them up.

“I drove Audrey over to the Blakes’,” Duke said. That got him a tiny nod, so he added “Dwight drove Jesse to school,” and carefully watched for Mikey’s reaction. Yeah, that got him a response, all right, but Duke couldn’t read what it was. Mikey clearly knew more than he was telling and Duke _could_ chase that trail, but he didn’t like how still Mikey was: not stiff or frozen, but unnaturally still.

“Hey.” Duke reached forward to shove Mikey’s shoulder. He wasn’t prepared for Mikey to raise his hand to catch Duke’s and turn his chin down and sideways, resting on their now-joined hands. _Well, fuck._ There went Duke’s plans of turning right back around and heading off. Mikey couldn’t have said _Please stay_ more clearly if he spoke out loud. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Mikey glanced up at him. Duke extracted his hand, carefully and without breaking eye contact. Mikey’s eyes said quite clearly that he expected Duke to leave anyway. That look was infinitely better than the emptiness of moments before, but Duke still would’ve preferred outright pain to Mikey’s patient bleakness.

Hand reclaimed, Duke turned around and said, deliberately loud: “Alex, just give me the damn phone alr-”

Alex threw the phone at his head, right on cue.

 

* * *

 

**_September_ **

 

He was loading crates into his Humvee when a familiar voice said: “Knew I could find you here.”

Duke sighed and turned away to face Audrey. “It’s not like you don’t know where I usually am,” he pointed out. She lived above his bar; the chances of them not running into each other at least once or twice a day were slim, even on days he decided to not bring her a morning coffee from the Gull. Like, say, the morning after she’d insisted he murder someone.

“I wasn’t sure your bouncer wouldn’t throw me out,” she said.

“I don’t have -” There’d been a car last night, Duke remembered suddenly. Mikey had gone to investigate and came back a moment later saying it was nothing. Was Audrey’s car there, when they’d finally left the Gull, some time after that? Duke couldn’t remember. But clearly Audrey expected Mikey to block her access, and last Duke checked Audrey was one of few people Mikey seemed to actually _like_. Clearly something had happened that Duke had missed - something like Mikey threatening Audrey away while Duke was working his way through the second bottle of whiskey. “That was you last night.”

“I do live above your bar, Duke. I wanted to talk to you, but Mikey looked ready to break my arm if I tried.”

It wasn’t Mikey’s place to interfere between Audrey and him, but Duke couldn’t entirely fault him for this one. She’d definitely had something to do with the reason Duke tried to hide in a bottle the night before. That reason being that he’d committed murder. “Well, I wasn’t ready to talk to you,” he retorted. Then he pretended to think about it and said, “Still not,” and purposefully turned back to his crates.

“They’re going to live,” Audrey continued as if he’d said nothing. “Stan’s nephew, Zoe, Miriam, Conner - they all recovered. That’s what I came over to tell you last night. But you already knew that, didn’t you.”

“Yeah, I already knew that,” he acknowledged without turning back. “And that’s exactly why I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“It was the right thing to do, Duke.”

He wasn’t up to dealing with this, hadn’t _been_ up to dealing with this, and honestly felt as if he never would be. “Well, it just doesn’t feel that way. And Audrey?” On that, Duke did turn around to look her in the eye. He wasn’t going to care if this hurt her. He wasn’t. “Next time, if you need to track me down to talk to me, then maybe you shouldn’t.”

 

* * *

 

  ** _November_ **

 

Nathan called a few hours later. Duke glanced at the caller ID, and took the call outside. This wasn’t a conversation the lunch crowd needed to overhear. “What’s going on?” he asked once he was clear.

“Well, Jaime stopped making himself ice over,” Nathan replied. “Mostly. Nervous kid.”

“Wouldn’t you be, in his position?”

“He did freeze his sister.”

Which wasn’t actually what Duke was thinking about, but that was Nathan for you.

Nathan continued. “Hasn’t come close to doing that to anyone else, yet. Audrey thinks that’s how this Trouble works.”

“That it only goes off over people you seriously care about.”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like a Trouble.”

“Pretty much. At least he’s probably not going to ice anyone else.”

“Except maybe his kid.”

“Isn’t that his sister’s kid?”

“I’m pretty sure Jaime’s the only father Jesse knows.”

“What happened to his real father?”

“The jerk who got Joy pregnant got arrested before Jesse was even born. When he came back a few years later, he got so pissed Joy wouldn’t take him in, he tried to take Jesse away from here. Any means necessary.”

“Please tell me he’s back in jail.”

“He is,” Duke confirmed. _And you of all people should know that DNA isn’t what makes a ‘real’ father._ But once again, that was Nathan. “So I take it things are not going well?”

“Not really,” Nathan said. Audrey’s voice could be heard in the background; Duke managed to catch his name. “Hold on,” Nathan added. A second later, that was Audrey’s voice on the phone. “Hi, Duke.”

“Hello, Audrey.”

“So I’m pretty sure this Trouble responds to distress. To make the distress stop.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what we figured last night.”

“Right. And the more the Troubled person cares about the other person, the harder the Trouble kicks in. So the worst it might to do a stranger or a coworker is a minor frostbite -”

“- but that was his sister. And she cut her hand pretty badly.”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Is there something I need to know? I know I should be asking Jaime, but sometimes an external perspective helps.”

“And sometimes it’s as simple as, Joy and Jesse are literally the only family he has,” Duke snapped.

“Why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry.” He was angry, but that wasn’t Audrey’s fault. She was just doing her job. He knew that. He took a deep breath and tried to hold on to that thought.

“Well, you sound angry.” But she sounded as if she was willing to let it go. “Nathan, do you…? All right. Thanks, Duke. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Later,” he echoed, then hung up and sighed. A glance towards the Gull revealed that no one had come after him yet. Good; he needed a moment to think. So Audrey hadn’t actually made any headway on this Trouble yet. This was normal. It _was_. She’d only been at it for a few hours, he reminded himself: they made the choice to not call her last night - he made that choice - so what did he expect? That was all. There was no reason to feel as if this wasn’t going to go well.

No reason at all.

 

* * *

 

 “Later” turned out to be a lot sooner than he’d thought.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Duke asked.

“No,” Nathan said, “but Audrey does.”

“Of course she does.”

“She figures being with people he knows will help Jaime relax.”

“Right.”

“You sound less than confident.”

Duke was about to deny that, but any attempt at finding a diplomatic way to say _I don’t think bringing the person with the anxiety Trouble into a working kitchen is a good idea_ was cut off by a touch on his lower back. That was all the warning Duke got before Mikey’s voice said: “Both of you move.”

“You don’t have anything to do in the kitchen,” Duke accused as he turned around.

“And you’re making everyone nervous,” Mikey replied.

Duke and Nathan exchanged a look.

“He’s got a point,” Nathan said.

They really were hovering at the kitchen’s door, but: “Don’t encourage him.”

Mikey’s only reply to that was an unimpressed look.

Duke looked at Nathan. “Did you have lunch - actually, did you have breakfast?” Duke had skipped breakfast, but that was besides the point; he remembered to feed himself, whereas Nathan only ate if someone around him did, often as not.

“I had coffee?” Nathan tried.

“Yeah, how about no.”

Mikey pointed at Duke’s preferred table, from which he could survey the Gull’s entire front, and didn’t return behind the bar until Duke and Nathan sat down.

Later, after their food arrived, Nathan said: “It’s getting late. I should arrange for someone to pick Jesse up from school.”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure Sasquatch’s got that.”

“Dwight? Didn’t he already stay the night with them?”

There were several possible ways to reply to that. Duke decided to try fishing. “Apparently, he and the Blakes know each other.”

“Huh.” Nathan swallowed a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “I didn’t know that. Did you?”

“Yeah,” Duke lied. “They used to be neighbours.”

“I don’t even know when he came to Haven.”

“Nathan, it’s Haven. Who tells anyone anything?”

“Doesn’t mean we should keep doing that.”

“And what are the odds of that ever happening?”

Nathan leaned back in his chair. “Are you hiding something from me, Duke?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because it’s you.” Nathan leaned forward again. “And because we’re talking about keeping secrets?”

“Like your dad not telling you about having a cleaner?” Duke deflected. He really should remember that Nathan knew him, and almost always knew when Duke was not talking about something. On the other hand, Duke knew Nathan better, and always managed to redirect Nathan’s attention. Nathan had just made it particularly easy this time.

Nathan made a face. “I still can’t believe he didn’t tell me.”

“Yes, well.” Duke washed the fish down with beer. “This _is_ Haven.”

“You’re right,” Nathan replied pensively. He looked out at the cove. “Maybe we’ve been lying to the whole world for so long, we forgot to not lie to ourselves.”

 

* * *

 

 Duke was outside, enjoying a much-earned and heavily-spiked coffee, when Jaime approached him on his own.

“Hi.”

“How are you doing?”

“Better, I guess. I haven’t frosted anything in hours. Haven’t felt even close to it in a few.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, it is.”

And yet, Jaime still had his hands stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders up. “Then what’s going on?”

“We’re going to go try again soon.”

“That’s supposed to be a good thing, too.”

“I don’t know that I can do this without Joy. She’s the smart one.”

“You don’t need to be smart to beat a Trouble. You just need to not be afraid.”

“I’ve never felt this lost. Even when Jesse was just a baby and had a fever. Even then, Joy and I were together. This is already the longest we’ve been apart.”

“All the more reason to get a grip. You’re doing this for Joy.”

Jaime took a deep breath. “Yeah. Thanks, Duke.”

“You got it.”

But Jaime didn’t leave. Duke drank his coffee, and pretended he wasn’t looking at the kid out of the corner of his eye. Eventually, Jaime said: “Duke?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You just did.”

Jaime stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets. He looked about a decade younger than he was. “So it turns out there’s quite a few Troubled folks who live on our street.”

“Really,” Duke said, neutrally as he could. He’d seen the Guard signs on every other house on Timber Knoll Lane just that morning.

“Yeah. We know exactly who they are, because they all stopped talking to us when we started work here.”

This was bad. This was real bad, and the reason Duke was suddenly cold had nothing to do with November weather. “Why would they do that?”

“Well - this morning, Jerry Brightman, he said if I came back here now that I’m Troubled, you’d kill me.”

Turned out, Dwight’s car was a Guard-beacon after all. Duke’s pulse skyrocketed. “What?” he demanded, trying to make it sound incredulous instead of panicked and angry. “Why would he say that?”

Jaime met his eyes for the first time that day. “That’s what I wanted to ask you. Why would anyone think that? You don’t go to church. You hang out with -” Jaime waved his hand in the general direction of the Gull, where Audrey and Nathan were “- them. You know about the Troubles almost as much as Detective Parker does. Why would anyone think you’d kill Troubled people?”

Duke was saved from some very creative lying by Jesse’s voice ringing out: “Uncle Jaime!”

Duke and Jaime both turned in the direction of the parking lot. Jesse was indeed running towards them. Dwight was walking behind him.

“Just go,” Duke told Jaime. “You don’t look scared to me.”

Jaime smiled hesitantly, then went straight to his kid. His steps turned to a run quickly. Duke caught Dwight’s eye and stayed right where he was: Jaime and Jesse were headed to the kitchen door.

“What’s going on?” Dwight asked when he reached Duke. “Are we dealing with another ghost Trouble? Because you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Again.”

Duke gave him a foul look. “Do you know a Jerry Brightman?”

Dwight took a split second too long to reply: “Yes. He’s bad news.”

“No really. He told Jaime I’d kill him.”

“What did you tell Jaime?”

“Well, lucky for me, the cavalry arrived.”

“I see. I’ll take care of it.”

“How?”

“That’s my job.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

“Of course not!” The last of the coffee sloshed and spilled as Duke threw his arms up.

Something flickered in Dwight’s expression. Duke wasn’t sure what it was: it was gone too quickly. Not as if Dwight thought Duke was lying, but - something. Still, all Dwight said was: “Then it’s not a problem.”

Duke took a deep breath, and bit his tongue.

 

* * *

 

  ** _September_ **

 

There was someone waiting for Duke when he got back to the _Rouge_ , sitting on one of the deck chairs. A big someone, in a zipped-up jacket that reflected the light dully, like worn leather.

“Sasquatch,” Duke said.

“Duke,” Dwight acknowledged as he rose to his feet. “Good eyes.”

“Consider wearing a different jacket sometimes.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I was hoping we could talk.”

Duke sighed. “Might as well come in. I do appreciate that  you decided to not lurk in the dark this time,” he added as he climbed down the ladder.

“I did say I’m here to talk.”

“Now was that trust inspiring?”

“Not particularly,” Dwight admitted.

Duke still poured two glasses. He wasn’t sure what Sasquatch wanted to talk about, but the big guy knew where to find Duke during daytime. If Dwight was at the _Rouge_ an hour after the Gull closed then he wanted privacy, and any conversation that called for privacy also called for a drink, as far as Duke was concerned.

Dwight accepted the glass, but didn’t drink from it. “I wanted to see if you’re all right. I heard about Harry Nix.”

Duke froze. Sharply, he said: “You mean you wanted to check if I turned into a serial killer since we last spoke.”

“No, I mean exactly what I said.”

“What did your boyfriend tell you?”

Dwight seemed genuinely confused.“What? You mean Mikey? Where did you get that?”

“So that wasn’t your shirt he wore, that you brought him after he threw Nielsen in the cove.”

To Duke’s surprise, Dwight relaxed and seemed mostly amused. “Are you sure all the shirts in your wardrobe right now are yours?”

“What?”

“He’s been working at the Gull for three months, tell me, how much does he notice what belongs to whom? If it fits, he’ll wear it. And you’re far more his size than I am.”

That gave Duke a pause. Yeah, Mikey did have a loose approach to personal possessions, and he and Mikey _were_ the same size; and now that Duke thought about it, Mikey also had similar preferences in colours, knit and weight. They probably had some identical shirts, even. So the answer was no, Duke had no way to be sure that Mikey hadn’t left the Rouge that morning wearing one of Duke’s shirts. “So you’re not together.”

“Never were.”

“I did wonder if you two didn’t break up, when he didn’t seem pissed off with me after I threw you off the boat.”

“I may have failed to mention that to him.” Dwight shifted as he said that, and there was something like the beginning of a smile playing at the corner of his lips, obviously fond.

“See, now that’s the sort of a thing that makes people think you’re dating,” Duke said.

Dwight ignored that. Instead, he asked: “So why _did_ you kill Harry Nix?”

“Because there were four kids in the hospital who were going to die if I didn’t.” Duke swallowed half of his whiskey. “And the word you’re looking for is ‘murder’. I murdered Harry Nix.” There was a perverse relief in saying that out loud.

Dwight looked at him for a long moment before he said: “Nix knew he was Troubled. He knew what his Trouble was.”

“Yeah, and?”

“He seeded himself dozens, maybe hundreds of children. As organ donors.” Dwight took a long pull from the glass he was still holding and which, until that point, Duke thought he wasn’t going to drink from. “He knew it was coming and his plan wasn’t to go into the woods and die. It wasn’t his Trouble that made him someone who needed to be put down. And what you did wasn’t murder.”

Duke put the glass to his lips while Dwight was talking. That was a mistake; coughing on whiskey was unpleasant. “Doesn’t feel like it,” Duke said once the burn subsided.

“That’s actually a good thing.”

“Doesn’t feel like that either.” Duke turned away. His voice was too tight and his body too tense. It was all he could do to not close his eyes, and he didn’t dare show that much weakness next to the hulking Army Ranger with the unknown motives.

“Duke.”

“I’m not a soldier,” Duke snapped, an instinctive defence against the sudden softness of Dwight’s voice.

“I know that,” Dwight said, but his voice was still gentle. “There’s a difference between regretting a death, and regretting that it was necessary. If you ever stop feeling bad about killing people I’ll end you myself, but don’t blame yourself for someone else being a monster.” Duke had turned back to face Dwight on _I’ll end you myself._ “All right?” Dwight finished

“Yeah,” Duke replied hoarsely. It wasn’t the whiskey making his head spin. Dwight was leaning forward, looking remarkably non-threatening - looking almost exactly like Mikey, leaning across the bar. Duke finished the glass off. “Why are you really here?”

“Because Mikey’s freaking out about you and I figured he’d be less likely to kill Audrey if I promised to check in on you.”

“Mikey’s not going to kill Audrey.” That was completely ridiculous.

“He decided he cares about you, so - that’s not a bet you want to take.”

“Is that why you’re _really_ here?”

“It’s another reason. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

 _He’s not going to kill anyone, Dwight. He’s a fucking Buddhist._ But Duke wasn’t blind, and Mikey hadn’t always been a pacifist and it wasn’t just open-water swimming that put that kind of muscle on him. _Controlled violence_ had been Duke’s first impression of Mikey and given what he’d seen since Duke was inclined to think the guy was a vet, probably some sort of Special Forces given how close Dwight and he seemed to be and specifically how protective Dwight was of him.

And now Duke apparently had a ticket into the circle of Dwight’s protection for as long as Mikey considered him a friend. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dwight nodded, finished his whiskey in a long pull, and put the glass down. “Take care, Duke. And I mean it: anyone gives you any trouble over this…”

“I’ll tell you,” Duke acknowledged. “And I’ll very definitely _not_ tell Mikey.”

Dwight shifted as if he was going to do or say something more, but he left without another word.

 

* * *

 

  ** _July_ **

 

Alex had been first to meet them on top of the stairs. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Mikey, lips pressed tight. Then he turned around and started barking orders. He caused more chaos than anything, but that, Duke thought, was the point: it distracted everyone while Duke ushered Mikey into the employees’ locker room. Mikey had knocked Nielsen unconscious, winded Taylor and done _something_ to Woodhouse’s arm that Duke hadn’t had the time to inspect yet, all without getting a bruise or a scratch on himself, but he wasn’t all right. Duke could only guess at what he’d be dealing with once the adrenaline wore off and Mikey was no longer absent. _At least it’s not a Trouble,_ he tried to console himself, but that was a cold comfort.

“Mikey.” Duke had to repeat the name a few times to get Mikey’s attention. “Mikey. I’m going to be back in a few moments, all right? Don’t go anywhere.”

Mikey just looked at him. Duke was almost about to repeat himself when Mikey gave a small nod, then turned his head to the wall.

Duke hurried back to the main space. Taylor and Woodhouse were raising a racket; they were the sort of people to pin this on Duke and his establishment, and Nielsen would be doing the same once he woke up.

Duke walked into the main room just in time to see Dwight come in through the front door. Splendid. That was just what he needed: the town cleaner, carrying a duffel bag. There was no way that was anything but bad news. To Duke’s surprise, Dwight tossed the duffel at him. It was mostly empty and barely weighed anything.

“Change of clothes,” Dwight said. He tilted his head towards Taylor and Woodhouse. “Mind if I deal with them?”

 _Change of -_ Duke stopped where he was and tried to not gape like a fool or a fish. How did Dwight know? It made no sense at all for Sasquatch to be there just in time, offering just the help that Duke needed, but Duke could deal with what the guy wanted in return later. All he said was: “Be my guest.”

Dwight nodded, and turned towards the quarreling old men.

 

* * *

 

  ** _November_ **

 

Duke talked Dwight into staying at the Gull with Jesse while Audrey and Nathan took Jaime to have another stab at reversing his Trouble. All Jesse needed was a light meal and table so he could do his homework; he could sit by the window and feel all independent while the entire staff kept an eye on him, leaving Dwight to sit at the bar and “Maybe, just maybe,” Duke said, taking the stool next to Dwight, “have a beer. One. On the house. Back me up here, Mikey.”

He didn’t expect Mikey to plunk two shot glasses on the wood surface and reach for the vodka.

“That’s your poison,” Dwight pointed out, “not mine.”

Duke lifted a finger. “He drinks. He, drinks.” Mikey had somehow decided that convincing people to imbibe mind-altering drinks was permissible employment, but that didn’t mean he ever drank alcohol himself.

Dwight and Mikey had locked eyes and both ignored Duke. Eventually Mikey put away the glasses and the vodka, and instead pulled out three beers.

Dwight looked at Duke. “Looks like you won.”

Mikey cracked open the bottles.

“Since when do you drink?” Duke demanded as he accepted his.

“I drink coffee, I might as well have a beer.”

That was not an answer, but as so far the conversation was making Mikey more irritated instead of less, Duke decided to give up and turn around to watch the Gull’s front instead. A moment later Dwight did the same and after a few moments more, Duke could feel the tension drop and something else take its place. He eyed Dwight out of the corner of his eye, careful to not move, to not do anything that might get him caught out. Dwight looked - exhausted. Sad. No: this was a different emotion, and it made Duke’s skin crawl.

Dwight and the Blakes knew each other, somehow. There was a history there, enough for Jaime to be comfortable with Dwight in a way he wasn’t with people he worked with every day.

 _We haven’t seen you since Lizzie,_ Jaime had said the night before. ‘Lizzie’, whoever she was, had been someone important to Dwight whom the Blakes had known as well. Something had happened to Lizzie, something that - Duke thought - had involved a Trouble, and the Guard.

Duke waited until Mikey left the bar with a tray for one of the outside tables before he said: “Lizzie was your daughter. About Jesse’s age, right?”

Dwight turned his head sharply. Duke met his gaze. Dwight’s momentary anger bled away. “Yes.”

“Jaime thinks the Guard got her killed.”

“That’s because they did.” It was Duke’s turn to stare at Dwight in surprise, and Dwight’s turn to meet his eyes cooly. “I left the Guard on bad terms. Some people had a problem with that.”

“They wouldn’t -”

“Kill a Troubled person? Why do you think I quit?”

“I was going to say ‘a child’.”

“They didn’t mean to kill her. But they did bring a gun.”

“And her Trouble kicked in.”

“My Trouble,” Dwight corrected.

 _Yeah, it doesn’t work this way, buddy,_ Duke thought. No Trouble was one person’s Trouble; so much grief could be saved if people only understood that - but Dwight knew that better than most. He wouldn’t have been torn to shreds in Afghanistan if his father had only said a word, had only put his son’s wellbeing above his own pride. What Dwight meant when he said **_My_** _trouble_ was: _It should have been me._ This was why some people walked up to a Crocker and begged to be killed.

 _Murdered,_ Duke corrected himself mentally. _Begged to be murdered._

Dwight must’ve been thinking along the same lines, because he said: “I would’ve. If it would’ve saved her. I would’ve -”

“Dwight,” Duke said. The tone of his voice was part warning, part plea. “You’re the one who’s supposed to end me, remember?”

Dwight blinked. The look on his face was one Duke had seen on Mikey, before, and he didn’t like it any better on Dwight. Speaking of - Duke looked around: there was Mikey headed back to the bar. That should put a lid on this conversation.

Mikey’s eyes stayed on Dwight as he got back behind the bar. It occurred to Duke that maybe the reason the care between those two always seemed one-sided was because he’d never seen Dwight unsettled, whereas he’d seen Mikey out of balance before.

Duke was handed another beer, but Dwight got a cup of coffee from the pot Mikey kept stashed, with a liberal amount of sugar added. Drinks served, Mikey said: “They’ll need to move.”

“I know,” Dwight replied.

Duke looked between them. “Joy and Jaime. Because they won’t join the Guard.”

“That’s not safe for a Troubled person in that neighbourhood,” Dwight confirmed.

 _Is that why you moved?_ Stupid question: yes, that was why Dwight had moved. The Guard had _killed his daughter._ Small wonder he wouldn’t take his eyes off Jesse. Duke was still reeling from the implications of what Dwight just told him about the Guard: how far they would go, what they would do. Duke had honestly not thought that the Guard, with their fanatic devotion to protecting the Troubled, would be so careless with a Troubled person’s life - and yet they were, and a child, no less.

“How much risk are they at?” Duke asked.

Mikey’s lips pulled in a close-mouthed smile.

“Mikey, _no_ ,” Dwight said.

That smile blossomed into a full grin, the kind that would usually make Duke back away. When did Mikey become an exception? Duke pushed the thought away and deliberately looked between the two vets who still had their eyes locked with each other. “What am I missing here?”

“Members of the Guard are strongly advised that should they pick a fight with Mikey, they’ll be paying their own hospital bills,” Dwight said. He sounded exasperated.

“Do I want to know what brought that on?” Duke asked. Mikey’s smile vanished and he looked away. Duke raised one hand in a stop motion. “On second thought, never mind.”

 

* * *

 

 Leslie walked in late in the afternoon. She was still pale and she looked as if she might’ve lost weight, but she swore she was well enough for half a shift. She got past Tracy and Mikey’s cross-interrogation, so Duke figured she really was: either Tracy or Mikey would’ve sent her home without a second thought if they thought she was too weak or alternatively, still contagious.

Duke’s tentative good mood lasted only until he caught sight of Audrey exiting her car. She slammed the door behind her; apparently things hadn’t gone well at the fishing shack where Joy was. Duke had thought that Nathan would call and let him know how things had gone, but - of course he hadn’t. Nathan’s memory had gone the same way as his appetite: mostly absent.

Duke gave it thirty minutes before he followed Audrey upstairs. He found her sitting on her bed and brushing her wet hair, just like he thought she would be.

“Duke!” she protested as he pushed the door open immediately after knocking, without having waited on her response.

He leaned against the doorframe. “Joy still on ice, I take it?”

Audrey’s shoulders dropped. “How did you know?”

“You only go straight to the shower if you had a really lousy day. Also, you really should be kinder to your car. It’s not the Bronco, you know.”

“You saw me get out of the car, is that how you - _Duke,_ have you timed me in the shower?”

Audrey’s tone was outraged, but it was only mock-outrage. She didn’t protest as he closed the door and came over to sit next to her.

“Only after bad days,” he promised.

She sighed. “I’m sorry, Duke.”

“Jaime still freaking out?”

“No, it’s not that. I don’t think it is. He calmed down a lot after lunch break, but he still frosts over each time.” She put down the brush and passed her fingers through her hair. “Clearly I’m missing something.”

He knew Audrey. He knew how she spoke, how she moved; and right now, Audrey was hiding something. The phrasing was off and so was the tone of her voice. “What’s really going on, Audrey?”

“What do you mean?”

Duke gave her a look.

Her shoulders dropped, fingers twisting the hem of her shirt. “Well, if I’m _not_ missing anything, then it’s just this Trouble.”

“Obviously it’s this Trouble -”

“No, I mean - what if _this_ is how this Trouble works?”

 _This_ was Jaime nearly trading places whenever he tried to thaw Joy. The thought gave Duke a pause. “You mean like - what was his name, aliens guy?”

“Wesley. Wesley Toomey. Roslyn’s son.”

“Yeah, him.” Audrey had Wesley turn his Trouble on himself; it wasn’t the first time she’d done that, and not the last one either. There’d been Brian back in July, the boy who’d killed Vanessa, and more recently Lynette the stenographer. The problem with Brian hadn’t been his Trouble, it was that he who enjoyed setting people on fire. As for Lynette, Duke still thought that if she hadn’t been as harsh on herself as she’d been of everyone else, she would’ve found another way out. Brian was a killer, and Lynette was as willing to die for her obsession with Justice as she was to kill over it. Wesley didn’t mean to kill anyone, but there was no way to end his Trouble but the path Audrey guided him to. No other way, except the one Duke wouldn’t consider.

What if Joy and Jaime -

 _No._ They were just kids. They didn’t deserve this. _Since when do the Troubles care? Since when does anyone care?_ But Duke did, and Audrey did too. The words spilled out, dressed in deliberate carelessness: “Yeah, you’re right. I hate to say it, but you’re probably just missing something. I’ll tell you what.” Duke pushed himself up. “Dinner’s on me tonight.”

Audrey huffed, but she also smiled. “Thanks, Duke.”

“I mean it. Just,” he waved a hand, “dry that hair before you come downstairs.”

“Don’t want me to catch a cold on the last two weeks of my life?” She shook her head before he could say anything. “I mean it too, Duke. Thanks.”

His throat was too tight to speak, so Duke just nodded then left.

 

* * *

 

 Mikey put a glass next to his hand. Duke put it up to his lips without even looking at it. He was in no mood to play host. Thank goodness Wednesday was an early close night, and Duke had only two more hours of this to get through.

The taste of the drink registered, and Duke paused to look at it properly. Lowball glass, dark caramel colour, spice and smokey sweetness: this was the same cocktail as Monday night. Duke looked at Mikey in surprise, and found Mikey still looking at him. _This my signature drink now?_ Duke meant to ask, but what came out was: “Thanks.”

Mikey replied in a language Duke didn’t recognize.

“That wasn’t in English,” Duke said.

“Sit down before you fall down.”

“Take your own advice,” Duke said, but he did sit. “How is today only Wednesday?”

“Magic.”

Duke gave Mikey a shit look. “Don’t say - okay, forget I said anything.”

“Shut up and drink.”

Duke wasn’t in the mood to needle Mikey over working at a bar, so he said “Good idea,” and proceeded to do that.

It wasn’t just the drink that smoothed over Duke’s frayed nerves. It was also the knowledge that this was a rare gesture, coming from Mikey. The guy was so attentive to and full of care for everyone, it was easy to never notice that he really did treat everyone the same: that care was impersonal. It’d taken Duke a while to notice that, too, and he really should’ve known better. Coming from Mikey, a custom-tailored drink was more personal than a hand at the small of one’s back. Duke tried to not let that get to his head. Yes, it felt good to have a guy like Mikey in his corner; but Duke didn’t believe in altruists, and he didn’t understand Mikey’s motives. One day his loyalties might shift again, and Duke would do better to remember that.

“The fuck’re you thinking about?”

Duke glanced up, startled; the words were harsh, but Mikey’s voice was pitched soft. He released the empty glass from Duke’s hand and put a coffee there instead.

“Nothing good,” Duke said. The coffee was hot, but not hot enough to burn; Duke pressed the glass against the inside of his wrist. The coffee, when Duke got around to drinking it, was very sweet and not at all spiked.

Mikey glanced at him when Duke pushed himself up, a while later.

“What is it?” Duke asked.

Mikey shook his head.

“Mikey.”

“Never mind.”

Ordinarily Duke would let it go, but Mikey was digging into the wrap bracelet, pulling it up. He hadn’t done that all day. _Something_ had set him off, and Duke would feel better if he knew what that was. “I asked,” he pointed out.

Mikey’s fingers tightened around the leather, twisting it - until he followed Duke’s gaze, realized what he was doing and stopped, though he didn’t remove his hand. A second later he looked up. “Stay where I can see you?”

Of everything Mikey could’ve said - but Duke asked Mikey to tell him, insisted even. He couldn’t take it back now, even if - he thought, eyeing Mikey critically - even if Mikey would let him. That made up Duke’s mind, more than anything. Gently, he said: “Okay. And I’ll stay inside.”

“Sorry,” Mikey said.

“I asked,” Duke reminded him.

“Doesn’t make me less crazy.”

“Not so much,” Duke admitted. “Now come on. One hour to go.”

“One hour to go.”

 

* * *

 

  _Thursday_

 

At first Duke didn’t know what woke him up. Then his phone beeped to indicate a new text message. Duke groaned and reached for this phone. He had two new messages, both of them from - Duke set upright: why was Jaime texting him so late it was early? The content of the messages was even more alarming: the first said _Save Joy and Jesse for me_ and and second said _Thanks._

“No, no, no, _no,_ this was _not_ supposed to happen.” Duke pulled up Dwight’s number, hit dial and pressed the phone to his ear. He didn’t have to wait long.

“What is it?”

“You tell me. Jaime just texted me to ‘Save Joy and Jesse’.”

“Hold one moment.”

“Why would he text me that? What did you tell him, Dwight?” Duke demanded. Like hell he was going to ‘hold one moment’. Dwight was supposed to fix this, not -

“He’s gone, he took the car,” Dwight said. “I’m going after him. Don’t worry about it.”

“Dwight -” But the other man already hung up.

“Damnit!” Duke tossed the phone against the bulkhead and regretted it immediately. He didn’t pick it up. Instead he reached for the nearest pair of jeans and started dressing. Audrey thought the only way to get Joy back was for Jaime to trade himself. Jaime obviously had the same idea. That would explain why he snuck away from the house on his own: nobody was going to let him do that. The only reason he could’ve had to text Duke, though, was if Dwight had done exactly what he was supposed not to do and told Jaime about the Crocker Curse. Whatever came now, Duke wasn’t going to meet it in his pajamas.

Duke had just finished tying his laces when his phone rang again. Duke picked it up from the deck where it still lay. _Mikey_. “I might as well have known,” he said by way of a greeting.

“Where are you?” Mikey demanded.

That was uncharacteristic. “On the Rouge,” Duke said.

“What’s going on? Why’s Dwight leaving Jesse?”

“Jaime’s snuck off to trade places with Joy - didn’t Dwight tell you?”

“Dwight’s gone cleaner.”

“No, that’s what he definitely did not do, he told Jaime about -” Duke had stepped out into the day room while talking. Standing there talking about _this,_ a different scene flashed before his eyes: Dwight leaning across the counter, warning him, _Mikey decided he cares about you, so that’s not a bet you want to take_.

Mikey spoke first. “Start from the beginning. Who woke you up?”

The calm surety in his voice caught Duke by surprise. It almost didn’t sound like Mikey, except for that characteristic warmth. It was the kind of voice that made it feel as if everything was going to be fine. “Jaime did. He texted me.”

“Saying what?”

“Do I really have to repeat that?”

“How did that even come up?”

“Jerry Bright -”

“-man,” Mikey finished together with Duke. “The asshole.” There was no anger in the way he said that; it was completely matter of fact.

“And who woke _you_ up?” Duke countered. He sounded as exhausted as he felt, and that was no good.

“Maya did. She’s staying with Jesse.”

“So Dwight called this Maya person.”

“Yes. And I need to move. Stay on the Rouge.”

“Yeah,” Duke said automatically, then: “ _No,_ I’m -”

“- going to kill Jaime?”

“No!”

“Then stay where you are and stay safe.”

 _I can’t._ He couldn’t stay put, and it didn’t matter if he’d rather stay safe: this town was going to chew him up and spit him out. He’s known that and he’d come back anyway. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Stay safe,” Mikey repeated. “I’ll call you again later.”

Duke held on to the phone long after the call disconnected, until it occurred to him what he was doing and he dropped it.

 _Stay safe._ He could, this time: all he had to do was stay on the Rouge. All he had to do was trust Mikey. On the other side of that choice was a blank. It felt as if letting go would shatter him. He had to go, had to see for himself what Jaime had done.

Whatever came next, Duke had to meet it on his own terms.

 

* * *

 

 The Land Rover’s lights caught on Jaime’s car, and the pale-haired person sitting inside. The fishing cabin came into view next. If Dwight’s and Mikey’s cars were there, then they were parked well out of the light. Which - given who Duke was dealing with - might’ve been done on fucking purpose. Duke paused and listened closely after opening the Land Rover’s door, but the only sounds audible were the soft rain and the ocean; no human voices.

Joy watched his approach, face pressed against the glass, but she didn’t get out in the freezing rain; she had an emergency blanket thrown over the same shirt she’d worn the day before. Duke walked around to the other side of the car, opened the door and got in. She threw her arms around him immediately. She was shaking, but her hand was neatly bandaged where she’d cut herself.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.”

She swatted his upper arm. “No, it’s not. Jaime’s frozen and I think it’s a Trouble and I have no idea what’s going on and Dwight and Mikey wouldn’t explain anything.”

“Dwight and Mikey were here?”

“They’re still here, I think. Their cars are just over there.” Joy pulled back enough to look at Duke. “Jaime’s _frozen,_ Duke. Did I do this? Mom always said Dad was too drunk to come out of the snow, but it was _that_ year and we were just babies and…”

Duke cut her off. “You didn’t do this. None of this is your fault.” He couldn’t tell her what had happened, not like that. “Right now I’m not sure what’s going on, either.” That wasn’t even a lie. “Who bandaged your arm?”

“Dwight did - do you even know Dwight?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I woke up in there and I was bleeding and Jaime was _frozen_ and I didn’t know what to do, so I found some cloth to at least put some pressure on it - I remember cutting myself at the Gull but that’s the last thing I remember. How much time did I lose?”

“Only one day. That was yesterday.”

“Oh thank goodness. Dwight said he was with Jesse but I forgot to ask for how long.”

“So I take it Mikey got here later?”

“Yeah, Dwight was just finishing up with my hand when Mikey got here. He didn’t look happy. Neither of them did.” She frowned on the last words.

“How unhappy?” Duke asked warily. He had no illusions about his odds if either of the commando types was _seriously_ upset.

Joy shook her head. “I’m not really sure.”

“How long’ve they been gone?”

“Maybe a minute? They took behind the cabin about when I heard your car.”

Terrific. That sounded promising. In all likelihood Duke would be walking into a fist-fight. “How about I go drag their asses back?”

Joy looked at him. “You’re not really asking me. You’re going to do it anyway.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“What I _want_ is to not be alone here. I want to get my brother so we can go back for Jesse. If you start arguing with them -”

“How about this. If they’re not in the mood for talking, I’ll come back here, drive you home to Jesse, then come back here again and haul off both their asses.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.” That was easy: he had no intentions of getting between Mikey and Dwight if he couldn’t immediately get their attention.

“Because I’m scared and wet and -”

“Joy, I promise.”

She nodded, tight-lipped.

Duke got out of the car, pulled up the collar of his jacket and headed around the cabin. Twigs, that was good. He should step on all the twigs. Maybe, if he stepped on enough twigs - yup: by the time he came around the corner Mikey and Dwight were both facing in his direction. Neither had overt violence in their body language; there was not enough light for Duke to be able to tell anything more.

“Someone should drive Joy home,” he announced. She really was cold, wet and scared and besides, he promised. It was also a good way to break Mikey and Dwight apart - though Duke wasn’t sure which of the two he’d be left with or even which of them he preferred.

The two exchanged a long look before eventually, Dwight looked away and walked past Duke, who waited until Dwight’s footsteps were drowned out by the sounds of water before saying: “Can we do this inside? Because unlike you, I actually do mind being out in the freezing rain.”

“What kind of a sailor are you?” Mikey asked, but he did start in the direction of the door.

“The  kind who doesn’t like pneumonia,” Duke retorted, following after him. Humor, that was good. On the other hand, he moved with the sort of controlled smoothness that usually meant violence. Duke wasn’t sure what to make of the combination.

Inside was lit. Duke had expected somewhere one could stash a human ice statue to be abandoned, but the cabin seemed well-tended. Jaime was in the center of the room. Joy had been frozen with her face set in surprise, grabbing her injured left with her right; Jaime was posed as if he’d been holding Joy when he’d let the ice take him. His eyes were closed. Duke stopped in place: he hadn’t expected Jaime to seem so peaceful, so -

“He’ll need to be moved somewhere more permanent,” Mikey said.

Duke startled. _The Hunter’s in two weeks,_ he almost said, but then he remembered the chameleon: the chameleon hadn’t reverted to their original form between the Troubles, they retained the last one they took. And if Joy and Jaime’s father had been lost to this Trouble, then he didn’t recover either when the Troubles went away the last time around - and no matter if it was him or the twins’ mother who was Troubled.

Eventually Duke worked past the lump in his throat enough to say: “Yeah.”

“It can wait until morning.”

“Is that what you were going to do before I showed up? Or just argue with Sasquatch all night? By the way,” Duke continued to the question he actually wanted answered, “what were you arguing about?”

“Lies involved in cleaning a Trouble, and we should move this conversation somewhere else.”

“No, we’re not - what are you doing? Jesus fucking Christ, Mikey, put that away.”

Mikey had bent down but, rather than tying his boot laces or anything of the sort, he rose up with a knife in his hand which he offered to Duke. Hunting knives were common around Haven but that was no hunting knife, and it was no diving knife, either.

“If you’re not going to use that, we’re getting out of here.”

“Fine!” Duke threw up his hands. “If I tell you to go away, are you just going to tail me and park yourself where you can watch the Rouge all night?”

“Yes,” Mikey replied without hesitation.

“Then yes, you might as well stay the night. Or whatever’s left of it. And by the way,” Duke added as they turned towards the door, “do I want to know what kind of a pacifist keeps a knife in his boot?”

“Knives. Plural.”

“That makes me feel so much better.”

Standing on the doorstep where they still had some light, Mikey turned to face Duke. “Was a soldier before I was a Buddhist.”

 _Kind of figured out that part,_ Duke almost said, but that was a flippant answer and Mikey was serious, his expression oddly open. “Why become a Buddhist, then?”

Mikey turned towards the waiting night. “Needed a way to live.”

 

* * *

 

  ** _September_ **

 

The first thing Duke noticed upon waking was that he’d had a lot to drink the night before; the second, that he didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as he ought to; memory of what had happened to make him get that trashed only came third. _Oh, right._ That’s what he got for hanging out with cops. As for the reason his head wasn’t pounding -

Duke sat up gingerly. He was in his bedroom, on his boat, in boxers and a comfortable old T-shirt rather than the clothes he’d murdered Harry Nix in, and he didn’t feel half as bad as he should given he’d gotten so drunk his memory was muddled. He didn’t remember the drive from the Gull to the Rouge, but he did remember being coaxed into drinking homemade saline and taking two Tylenol. Moreover, he’d been woken up by the unmistakable smell of food.

Duke pushed himself up the rest of the way, and went to investigate.

Mikey turned his head at the sight of him. “You don’t look like hell. Shakshuka’s not ready yet, but there’s coffee if you can stomach it.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” He wouldn’t be able to keep coffee down until he’d had something to eat. “What are you even cooking?” The scents that woke up him were tomatoes, garlic and oil; the stuff in the pan looked like tomato sauce with extra tomatoes, and there were eggs cracked into a bowl waiting on the counter. “Shak- what?”

“Potassium and grease,” Mikey said.

“Hangover breakfast. Excellent.” Duke sat down. Mikey’s eyes were on him as he moved, assessing like a nurse’s. “No, I do not need more saline.”

Mikey looked doubtful, but returned his attention to the pan.

Duke watched him at it. Mikey knew his way around a boat’s kitchen. That wasn’t unexpected: maritime experience wasn’t the sort of a thing one could hide around Haven, though Mikey certainly tried. Mikey hid everything about his past, really; he was just personable enough to make that easy to pass over.

It wasn’t long before Mikey served both of them deep dishes of sunny-side-up eggs shining bright in the sauce with thick-sliced toast on the side. Duke had been dubious about the garlic, but Mikey was right: the food - whatever it was called - settled Duke’s stomach enough for him to pour himself some coffee.

“For the record,” he said as he sat back down, “if I were into guys I’d marry you today, but I’m not. So.”

“I’m not into guys, either. So.”

Mikey said that as if he’d had that assumption made about him before. Which, yeah: Duke had been convinced Mikey was gay for about a month, before the events at the end of August made him doubt what he’d thought he’d seen back in July.

If this was anyone else Duke would be tense and wary, waiting on whatever Mikey wanted in return for the kindness of staying with Duke, driving him home and making him breakfast. But this was Mikey, who treated this sort of a thing as a religious obligation; though Duke wasn’t sure how this also included his killing a g-

He’d told Mikey about that, hadn’t he. Fuck. This was why Duke preferred to drink alone.

But to look at Mikey moving about the stateroom, you couldn’t tell that he knew. It would be entirely in character for Mikey to be doing this on purpose, to make Duke feel safer. It achieved anything but. Trust was a fluid thing, and it never worked out over the long term. Even his _wife_ \- his ex-wife, but still - had had a secret agenda. Duke would never find out how long Evi had been working with the Rev. He really didn’t need a person he worked with every day to have ulterior motives. Sure, he could always fire Mikey; but for one thing that would not be in his best interest now that Mikey knew and, for another, Duke wouldn’t give up the best bartender in Haven that easily. Plus, he genuinely liked the guy; which, granted, was a reason to get rid of him as soon as possible, but Duke always had been a soft touch that way.

“Then why are you still here?”

Mikey tossed him a disgusted look over his shoulder. “What was I supposed to do, let you drink and drive and get yourself killed?”

 _Yes,_ and also that didn’t explain the rest of it, but Duke knew when he wasn’t going to get an answer. Pissing the guy off wasn’t going to get Duke a different answer than _Was I supposed to let you get yourself killed?_ Thinking _Yes, you were_ wasn’t going to help, and neither was thinking _I don’t deserve breakfast, I just killed a guy._ But then, Duke hadn’t worked this hard at being a selfish bastard for nothing. So he soaked the toast with the tomato sauce, poured himself another cup of coffee, and shut up.

 

* * *

 

  ** _November_ **

 

By the time they parked at the marina Duke already regretted agreeing to let Mikey stay until morning proper. He really didn’t need another person in his space, and Mikey was a particularly bad choice. On the other hand, Duke had no doubt that the guy really would sit in the rain and observe the _Rouge_ , and he needed to sit in his cabin and think of that even less than he needed to not have Mikey in his day room.

Duke considered pouring himself something or sticking around for the pot of coffee Mikey put on as soon as they stepped in, but elected to try and get some shut-eye instead. He doubted he was going to get any sleep - it’d begin getting light in less than three hours - but he could close his bedroom door behind him and refuse to feel guilty about it.

When he next checked the time it’d been an hour and a half. He didn’t feel as if he’d had any sleep at all. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t; there was more than one way to lose time and it was that sort of a night. That sort of a _week_ , Duke thought sourly as he forced himself to get up; a week before that morning, he’d gotten on a plane to Colorado with Audrey. It wasn’t been 100 hours since Nathan had been dead.

Mikey was curled up into the corner of the couch, coffee mug on the table. Duke was most of the way through his own mug before it occurred to him that one, the guy hadn’t poured himself more than one cup before Duke got up; two, he hadn’t even twitched while Duke puttered around the galley, muttering and swearing mostly-audibly; and three, he was still in the same wet clothes.

“Mikey.” It only took three tries to get a response. “Go put something dry on.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re - you know what, I’ve had it with your bullshit.”

A moment later, Mikey got up and headed down the hall.

Duke went over to check: Mikey’s mug was only half-empty. Probably had no sugar in it, too.

Mikey returned a few moments later, wearing one of the oldest pairs of jeans in Duke’s closet and a heavy knit which, Duke knew, came from the pile of clothes that belonged in neither the closet or the laundry just yet.

“If I spike your coffee, is that going to be a problem for reasons other than the religious?” Duke asked, conversationally as he could.

It took Mikey a moment to say: “Yes.”

“Right.” If Duke wanted answers then this was the time to ask questions. It was a dick move, but this was his best - maybe even his only - chance to get some answers. He handed Mikey a fresh cup of coffee, with a generous amount of sugar added and - because Mikey would’ve done it himself if he was all there - cream also. “You said that Dwight had ‘gone cleaner’. What did you mean by that?”

Mikey gave him an exhausted look. There may have been other emotions in there, but they were difficult to discern through the exhaustion. “He told you he won’t tell Jaime about your Trouble?”

“Not in those words.” Duke inhaled, and exhaled on: “Right. He was cleaning me. Easier to get me to let go then to come up with a lie to tell Jaime. Or at least, it was the first time. Won’t work again.” Saying that to Mikey was probably a mistake, but -

“Won’t try again,” Mikey said in between sips of coffee. “Shouldn’t have this time either.”

 _Who’s Maya? Why are you here? Were you there when Lizzie was killed?_ Duke could ask any of those questions, but he wasn’t going to. Mikey didn’t look absent like he usually did when something set him off, or panicky like when the initial response wore off. The knit’s sleeves were a little too long for him, and he pulled them halfway over him palms, holding the sleeves with his little and ring fingers as he held the mug with a total of six fingers. His shoulders were hunched but that, too, looked more like cold than distress. Maybe he really was that cold: only people Duke’s seen who looked that tired were sick or haven’t slept in days. Mikey looked as if he shouldn’t even be awake, let alone standing up. Duke was tired, upset and feeling particularly untrusting, but he wasn’t this much of a bastard. So instead, he sighed and said: “I think it’s your turn to sit down before you fall down, buddy.”

 

* * *

 

  ** _July_ **

 

The Gull was slowly returning to normal. Alex imposed order in his domain, namely, the employees. He also tried taking over the bar, but Kelly kicked him out and back to the floor as soon as she returned from having delivered lemonade to Dwight and the three old hacks. Dwight had taken them outside and out of direct line of sight, which also helped cool things off.

The situation was supposedly under control, but Duke didn’t feel reassured. Far from it. With the Gull mostly returned to order, Duke had time to think of everything he didn’t understand which he’d still be dealing with the next day, and the one after that. He’d have a better read on the situation when Mikey’d emerge from changing clothes and changing tacks in his head. Duke felt as if that was taking forever but it’d barely been a few minutes since he’d delivered Mikey the duffel. He wasn’t going to get worried unless it got to half an hour - and Dwight would probably finish with Nielsen, Taylor and Woodhouse before that would happen. Duke’s bet was that Dwight would go after Mikey as soon as he was done cleaning the other mess.

New England grudges, bar fights and berserk buttons were all things that happened. Duke was more wary of Dwight’s involvement than any other aspect of the situation. Kelly had found Mikey’s cell phone behind the bar, which was how Duke knew that texting Dwight was the last thing Mikey did before jumping into the middle of a fight and then the cove. That Mikey had left the phone behind and Dwight knew to bring a change of clothes said that Mikey had already known he was going to end up in the water. The text itself was in shorthand Duke couldn’t decipher. That, together with the bullet scars, made Duke particularly nervous. The situation could have some perfectly innocuous explanation, but Duke still didn’t appreciate the sense of having been ambushed.

Mikey took less than fifteen minutes to return to the front of the Gull. It was a good thing that Duke was sitting a corner table instead of his usual perch at the end of the bar, or Mikey would’ve run straight into him. He didn’t look as bad as he could’ve, Duke thought: someone who didn’t see him every day wouldn’t have realized anything was off. But Duke did see him almost every day and was used to taking stock of people besides, and he could tell the effort Mikey was putting into moving normally and that his eyes were too wide. Duke spotted something else off when Mikey raised a hand to brush wet curls out of his face: on Mikey’s wrist was not the bracelet he always wore but corded red string with a single blue glass bead. _Wet,_ Duke thought; so Mikey had been wearing it under the leather. Huh.

That shirt was definitely borrowed. The worn jeans fit Mikey too well to be anything but his, but the shirt was too big in every possible way and a pale shade of blue that looked terrible on him. Some guys didn’t care what they wore but Mikey wasn’t one of them, which meant the blue henley two sizes too big - was probably Dwight’s, Duke realized: Sasquatch liked his henleys.

That suggested an explanation Duke hadn’t considered before. Mikey’s sexuality was a matter of endless debate among those Gull employees who were into men; Duke pretended to not notice the whispers on the basis that it wasn’t any of his damn business and anyway, his money was that Mikey wasn’t interested in anyone no matter how comfortable he was in other people’s personal space. _Or maybe_ \- Duke thought as he watched Mikey turn his nose into that shirt as if trying to draw comfort from the scent - _he just already has a boyfriend._ That was certainly as innocuous an explanation as it got.

Mikey turned his head as Duke approached him. The first words out of his mouth were: “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Duke said carefully. That was an odd question. “Are you?”

“I’m - shit, I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

Mikey eyed him as if he expected that to be a trick question. “I _think_ I didn’t kill anyone -”

Duke raised his hand. “Okay, stop.” Thankfully, Mikey did. Duke continued. “Let’s try this again. What you did was stop a fight. Those three would’ve done worse to each other if you hadn’t stopped them.”

“I shouldn’t have -”

Duke recognized this shade of nervousness, now: Mikey was convinced he’d done something wrong. Duke didn’t wait to hear what that was. Instead, he said “Mikey,” and put his hands over the guy’s upper arms. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s fine. I’m fine, everyone’s fine, even the three pains in the ass are fine.”

“I broke Woodhouse’s arm three different ways, don’t tell me he’s not -”

“Dwight’s handling it.” That made Mikey focus. There was Duke’s in. _Of course_. “Dwight’s handling it,” he repeated. “You texted him, remember? Dwight’s cleaning this. He’s right out the door, dealing with Nielsen, Taylor and Woodhouse.”

And yeah, Duke called it right: _Dwight’s handling it_ was the key to getting Mikey to settle down, at least a little bit. Still, he asked: “And you’re all right?”

“Yes, I’m all right. You’re the one who took an afternoon swim.”

Mikey gave Duke a strange look, as if the statement made no sense. All he said, though, was: “I should get back to the bar.”

“Yeah,” Duke agreed. It occurred to him he still had his hands on Mikey’s arm. He removed them hurriedly; yet another way in which Mikey’s stillness could be odd. “Just watch out for Alex, you know what he gets like.”

Mikey huffed, some humor restored. “Thanks.”

 

* * *

 

  ** _November_ **

 

“Duke!” Audrey perked up when he showed at her door half an hour after sunrise. She was standing at the sink. “I wanted to talk to you. Yesterday I asked Vince to go through the Herald’s archives but he never got back to me and I thought, you know, maybe it’s worth it to go through Garland’s files this time. Gotta be something there if he went to all that effort to hide them, right? I stayed up more than half the night digging through his old files. Guess what I found.”

Duke sat down at the table. “Art Blake disappeared in winter 1983.”

“Yes! Garland and Lucy totally handled that one. And if I’m reading Garland’s code right, what happened was Art Blake did something stupid while drunk that caused his wife’s Trouble to activate when she freaked out at him. And then she…” Audrey waved a hand, “decided that if her kids have to grow up with only one parent it’d better be her, I guess.”

“So they just said he went missing in a snowstorm.”

“Yeah. Wait -” Audrey paused with a dish towel in hand. “How did you know that? Who told you he disappeared?”

“Joy did.”

“When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t tell you, because she only told me this at what I figure is about the same time you were going through Garland’s files.”

The colour drained from Audrey’s face. “What did Jaime do?”

“What do you think he did?”

“Dwight was supposed to stay with him -”

“Yeah, it turns out even sasquatches need to sleep. Jaime snuck off on his own. Didn’t text me until it was too late.”

Audrey crossed over to the table. Standing, she was taller than Duke sitting. “He texted you?”

“Someone had to come patch up Joy’s hand.” There was no point pretending that Jaime hadn’t texted him. Audrey would question everyone who was involved in this, and she’d find out. If he told her, if he pretended there was nothing to hide, then it wouldn’t occur to her Jaime had had any other reason to contact him. Duke doubted Dwight would tell Audrey anything more. It was already established that Dwight would do whatever created the least mess to _clean._

“Is she okay?” Audrey asked.

“As much as she can be.”

“I’m sorry. I really thought there was a way to reverse this, somehow.”

“Well, there isn’t.” He’d’ve add _You’ve nothing to apologize for,_ but he had a rough night, too.

“Not even -” She took a deep breath and sat down next to him. “It doesn’t look like this is going to reverse itself when - in two weeks.”

“Yeah,” Duke said heavily. He pushed himself up. “So, now that we updated each other -”

“Duke -”

He stopped at the door and turned back to face her. “It’s done, Audrey. Let it go.”

“Like you’re going to let it go.”

He turned around, said, “Attachment leads to suffering,” and walked out.

“What did I tell you about the Buddha quotes!” Audrey shouted after him.

He didn’t reply.

 

* * *

 

 He headed back to the Rouge. By the time he came down the stairs from Audrey’s floor the lights were already on in the Gull: someone had already arrived for opening shift. It wasn’t necessarily Mikey, but Duke didn’t feel like dealing with anyone. So instead, Duke texted Alex to say that the Gull needed a new kitchen hand by way of letting the guy know that Duke wouldn’t be showing up, went home and pulled out a well-earned bottle of whiskey.

He got about halfway through said bottle when he heard footsteps down the ladder. “Whoever you are, just go away,” Duke called out, not that he expected that to work. There was nobody in his life so considerate as to leave him be when requested. Indeed, Dwight walked into his field of vision a few seconds later. “I see Mikey didn’t kill you.”

“He didn’t,” Dwight acknowledged. He walked right past Duke and into the galley.

Duke called after him: “Not even a black eye, I’m disappointed.”

“Not really his style.” Dwight returned to the stateroom with a tumbler in hand and plunked down across from Duke, who pushed the bottle towards him by way of permission. Whiskey poured, Dwight added: “He’s probably just going to turn the Jewish guilt on until he decides I had enough.”

“Jewish,” Duke repeated. “He’s Jewish?”

Dwight put down the now-empty glass. “If you want the lecture, ask him.”

“Would that be the lecture about how Buddha isn’t a God and no god, no problem?” Duke topped them both off. “Because I heard that one from a lady in Boston once.”

Dwight shook his head, but clinked his glass against Duke’s.

“By the way, I’m still pissed with you.”

“Did you really think you could keep that secret?”

“Is that why you told Jaime? Or was that because of Jesse?”

Dwight put the glass down too hard.

Duke continued. “You said it yourself. If you’d had the option -”

“Duke…”

“Is that what happened last night? And don’t turn this on me; I’m the one who got asked to kill a guy because you made a decision for me on what secrets I do or don’t get to keep.”

Dwight’s jaw was clenched. “You shouldn’t have been in that position.”

“Then you shouldn’t have put me there.”

“I read Jaime wrong.”

“If you thought for one second he wouldn’t trade himself for Joy -”

“I didn’t think he’d ask that of you.”

“You said you would’ve, what made you think he wouldn’t?”

“Because you thought about it.”

“The first time I killed a guy he literally jumped on the knife so yeah, I kind of think about those things.”

It was a distressingly long moment before Dwight said: “I thought Harry Nix was the first.”

“No, he was just the first man I murdered.” Duke tipped his chin up, challenging Dwight to call him out on that word. “Kyle Hopkins jumped on the knife weeks before that.”

“Hopkins was one of the - The Rev really was a piece of work, wasn’t he.”

Duke shook his head. “That he was. And now that we established that, why are you crashing my pity party?”

“Because there’s only so many places in this town where I can drink without worrying about finding a knife between my ribs.”

“That’s actually a pretty good reason.”

“I’m glad you agree.”

 

* * *

 

 Duke hadn’t bothered to move from the stateroom after Dwight had left. He was more-or-less sitting and mostly asleep when he was shaken none too gently. He batted an arm in the general direction of the unknown offending party. “G’away.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Go away, Nathan.” Duke pried his eyes open. Nathan was crouched next to him. He looked the way Duke expected him to, judging by the tone of his voice and how his jaw was stubbornly locked. _Great._ Because clearly, what Duke should be dealing with was Nathan in his worst possible mood.

“How much did you have to drink?” Nathan demanded.

“None of your goddamned business,” Duke retorted. He didn’t add, _And take your hands off me._ Nathan was still holding on to him, but he probably didn’t realize he was doing it. Duke figured it was a Trouble thing; Nathan had been doing it more and more the longer the Troubles went on.

“What happened?”

“Well, I don’t know if you talked to your partner today -”

“I talked to Audrey, Duke. But you don’t go and get drunk every time someone dies from the Troubles.”

Nathan’s hands fell away from Duke when he said Audrey’s name. Duke took the sharp, vicious stab of emotion and twisted it into anger. _Better,_ even if it didn’t make the nausea go away any. What Duke wanted was for Nathan to go away, and the quickest way to do that was - “Yes, I do.”

“You don’t just get shitfaced over anything.”

“Right, that’s ‘anything’ now. Shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. You’re not real to you, so why would anyone be.”

“That’s it.” Nathan pushed himself up. “I don’t have to deal with your sorry ass.”

Duke didn’t bother replying to that. He just let his head fall back and the dizziness take over again as Nathan’s footsteps faded away. He was only beginning to properly drift unconscious when he was rudely shaken. Again. This time, though, Nathan stood over Duke.

“I just talked to your shift manager, he says you haven’t even been in today. You wouldn’t do that, not if this was actually about your employee. What the hell’s going on, Duke?”

Duke turned his head away and refused to reply.

“What did you do?” Nathan demanded.

 _Why do you always assume I did something._ But Duke didn’t say that. _I didn’t do something._ He didn’t say that, either. That didn’t stop Nathan from jumping to a conclusion anyway.

“Did you kill Jaime to release Joy?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“That what Audrey toldja?”

“Audrey wanted you to kill Harry Nix; for all I know you two are keeping secrets again.”

Duke let his head fall, having lifted it earlier. “I can make m’own choices.”

“Yeah, shitty ones.”

“Didn’t wanna kill Nix. Don’t wanna kill Jaime. Didn’t have t’be told.” Duke’s eyes slid shut. He didn’t fight it; he didn’t want to be having this conversation.

Nathan grabbed his chin and pulled his face up roughly. “Duke!”

Duke wasn’t going to try and force Nathan’s hand away, not when he was this drunk and Nathan couldn’t feel anything, anyway. That didn’t mean he had to meet Nathan’s gaze, and he didn’t. “That what happened?” Nathan demanded. “You upset you didn’t get to kill someone?”

Fuck. Duke was drunk enough that tears stung his eyes. And he couldn’t get away because, right, drunk: he’d probably fall over if he tried to stand up. “Don’ wanna kill ‘nyone. Don’ hav’ta be told.”

“Okay,” Nathan said after a long moment. His voice was surprisingly soft, enough that Duke looked at him. But Nathan wasn’t where he was before: he sat down next to Duke and rearranged both of them. “Okay. It’s okay.”

 _It’s not,_ Duke thought, but he was tired and Nathan was warm, so he closed his eyes instead.

 

* * *

 

 Nathan was gone when Duke woke up again. He was laying in a somewhat more comfortable position, but he was still nauseated, his head felt ready to split and he had an urgent need to relieve himself. Duke took care of business and dragged himself to bed. The next time he woke up daylight was almost entirely gone, and the boat smelled like food and coffee.

Duke was sorely tempted to go back to sleep, but the last person he remembered being on his boat was Nathan, and Nathan didn’t cook. Duke dragged himself out of bed and over to the galley. There was a covered dish left on the counter; whoever had left it there hadn’t used Duke’s kitchen to cook. The coffee was in its usual pot, though. Duke forced himself up the ladder, too, but there was no one visible on the deck. Whoever had brought food and made coffee was long gone.

He went back inside. A shower and two Tylenols helped him feel somewhat more human. He didn’t remember if he’d taken any earlier but even if he did, he was pretty sure it’s been enough hours he wasn’t going to overdose. Then he went back to the galley. He ignored the covered dish but, upon consideration, poured himself a cup of coffee. He froze after the first sip.

This wasn’t Duke’s usual coffee, and it wasn’t any of the crap sold in Haven’s local shops, either. Duke recognized the scent too, now that he was more awake. This was definitely Mikey’s coffee that he didn’t even make every day, only sometimes, and which he never shar- no, the day before -

Duke poured the pot down the drain, then braced both his hands against the edge of the sink.

 

* * *

 

 The next morning he got up extra early so that he could be at the Gull before Mikey - always first - came in through the door.

“You and I need to talk, buddy,” Duke said. Mikey stopped where he was. “You really need to stop doing those things. Don’t give me those eyes. Whatever soldierly pact -”

Mikey went from confused to irritated in a heartbeat. “It’s not -”

“Mikey.” Duke cut him off, loudly. “Whatever you think you’re doing, I don’t care. This is what it looks like to me, and it needs to _stop._ ”

Mikey blinked. “Okay.”

Duke was taken aback. Mikey’s anger disappeared just like that. He didn’t even seem any kind of upset, not really; sad, yes, but then, that was how Mikey usually looked. “Just like that?”

“I want to help. If it’s not helping -”

“Is that what this is about? Some Buddhist -” Duke stopped. Mikey’s usual sorrow morphed into an altogether different kind of hurt. No, this wasn’t some sort of religious commitment; Duke had already known that, even if he didn’t know what it _was._ “Forget I said that.”

Mikey started to shake his head then seemed to have changed his mind halfway through. “What do you want, Duke?”

“What do _you_ want?”

Mikey looked - no, not transparent, Duke thought. He was perfectly solid and yet he didn’t quite look real. Even the ghosts had looked more solid than that.

Trying for gentleness, Duke asked: “Why’d you come here, back in June?”

“Seemed like a good way to piss off both the Guard and the Church.”

“Seriously?”

Mikey shrugged.

“You’re the world’s worst pacifist.”

“I don’t start fights, I break them up.”

Mikey said that without a trace of humor. Duke thought the statement over. Dwight had said that the Guard kept their distance from Mikey. If the Church had had a similarly bad experience with the guy, then Mikey’s presence at the Gull _would_ have served to keep both movements away, which - Duke _had_ wondered how those kinds of fights had never happened at his bar. And that, Duke thought, was a very Mikey thing to do. That wasn’t personal. “Then what changed?” Duke asked, because something had.

Mikey still looked miserable enough to make Duke feel like shit, but he also looked resolute. “Didn’t know you then.”

 _You sure you’re not into guys, buddy?_ But no: that didn’t actually matter. Duke knew that look on Mikey’s face: he’d seen it in the mirror, most recently in Colorado. He shied away from the thought as if it was a pool of blood. He sighed. “You know this is a bad idea, right?”

“Took me this many years to -” Mikey waved in Duke’s direction “- again.”

 _Whatever you want, I’m not it._ But saying that amounted to asking _Why me?_ and all that was going to get him was Mikey attempting to rise to the challenge, which was exactly the sort of thing Duke needed to avoid. “Okay, let’s shelve this conversation. Just - don’t just _do_ things for me, okay? It’s creepy. Can you do that?”

“Yeah.”

“All right then. Now c’mon, we have a bar to open.” 


End file.
